Base Reality vs. Virtual Reality.

From the moment that you are born until the moment that you shuffle off to Buffalo in a pine box, you've only known one reality and you logically enough assume that your reality is base Reality (Really Real Reality). However, that remains an unproven assumption. Many claim our Base Reality resides inside a larger supernatural reality - also an unproven assumption. You could claim that your dream states are a form of 'reality' that nests inside Base Reality. Dream states are at least an established form of 'reality' of sorts. But is that the end of the possibilities? No. Since other possibilities are, well, possible, you cannot categorically conclude that your birth-to-death reality is the be-all-and-end-all of reality or of realities, any more than the characters in our various thousands of differing video games could collectively figure out the exact nature of our reality.

So how might you test for a reality that trumps your own assumption that you are in Base Reality? Well, if we are in Base Reality there shouldn't be any anomalies, enigmas, paradoxes, inconsistencies, or contradictions exhibited by or within that Base Reality. Base Reality should be totally self-consistent. All the pegs fit perfectly in all of the holes and there are no pegs or holes left over. Unfortunately, when it comes to what we call Base Reality, well there's something screwy somewhere about it being totally self-consistent. So we do have a legit reason to question whether Base Reality is in fact the be-all-and-end-all of realities.

I keep saying that one can simulate quarks and electrons (and there life, the Universe and everything - including you), but of course there might not really be such things as quarks and electrons since if we're just a virtual reality simulation then quarks and electrons are already simulated or are just simulations in and of themselves and thus could be just pure inventions of the external programmer. You do not know, you cannot know, the nature of any reality external to you. Reality is, again, all in the mind but what your mind tells you is reality might not actually be the case or the truth of the matter.

Anyway, if Mother Nature can create you out of quarks and electrons with awareness, self-awareness and consciousness, then since bits and bytes can replace quarks and electrons in a simulation, then you too can be simulated to that same degree but within virtual reality.

Now you could presumably go off to the shops and buy a copy of the video game player "The Life and Times of an Accidental Metaphysician" (or lacking that being available, "Dungeons and Dragons" or any one of hundreds of other gaming titles). That would just be a packet of digital information. In a similar way, E.T. could go off to its store and buy a copy of "The Life and Times of the Third Rock from the Stellar Body Known as Sol" which of course could also feature you (depending on when that 'game' was created). Now a way, way more interesting question is unlike the video games which have 'puppets on a string' scenarios, could "The Life and Times of the Third Rock from the Stellar Body Known as Sol" be more akin to a 'cast your fate to the wind' scenario? That's whereby the initial 'what if' parameters are set up (those laws, principles and relationships in physics*) and then the 'creator' or programmer just sits back and watches what unfolds, very similar to Conway's "Game of Life".

Now a basic scenario goes something like this. There can be only one Base Reality (Really Real Reality) but within Base Reality there can exist thousands, millions even billions (or more) simulated of virtual realities some of which are going to be incredibly sophisticated. So, do you bet on being in the Base Reality (Really Real Reality) or in one of the thousands, millions even billions (or more) of virtual realities? One specific scenario I find plausible is that it could very well be the year 2525 in Base Reality (Really Real Reality) and we're an ancestor simulation (perhaps one of thousands or more) that has now reached the ancient past era and the historical year of 2017.

*For example, let's have our programmer program things such that there is an every so slight bias in favor of matter relative to antimatter instead of making things 100% symmetrical.